It’s morning in Esther Willinski’s third-grade class at the Henry P. Clough Elementary School in Mendon.

Projected onto the screen is a graph with three lines, denoting temperature trends in Tokyo; Sydney, Australia; and Churchill, Canada. The students ponder the projection, their textbooks open to a copy of the graph.

At first glance, it appears like any other classroom in the school.

Then Willinski speaks.

"Que dia es mas frio en Churchill?"

The class is part of the school district’s Spanish immersion program, in which students are taught exclusively in the language during the first years of their elementary careers, and continue with the language part-time through the rest of their education.

In the Mendon-Upton program, students hear only Spanish from kindergarten to second grade. In grades three and four, eighty percent of the instruction is in Spanish, and from there, English instruction is phased in further.

Joan Scribner, the chairwoman of the Mendon-Upton Spanish Immersion Advisory Committee, helped establish the district’s program 15 years ago.

"We decided to go with Spanish, because we thought there were so many Spanish-speaking people in the country," she said.

She said she and fellow Spanish teacher Kathy Monroe had been charged years ago with examining the prospect of adding such a program to the district.

"Kathy and I spent a year doing research - we spoke to Minnesota schools (that had programs) and traveled to the D.C. area, where we visited immersion programs," she said. "We made a presentation to the School Committee, and they said, 'Let's go forward.'"

Though the method of instruction may be radically different, education officials said the curriculum is the same. Holliston Superintendent Bradford Jackson, whose district has offered a French immersion program for the past 30 years, said students in the program receive the same instruction as any other student.

"The students are receiving topics in alignment with state frameworks," he said. "It's just that all instruction is in French."

Jackson said Holliston students remain in an exclusive French-speaking classroom through third grade. Fourth and fifth grades, he said, were split between French and English instruction, and this can pose unique challenges.

"At the point where they switch over to French and English, the students don't know how to read English - they have to be taught," he said. "They speak fluent English, of course, they just don't know how to read and write."

Scribner said this is a concern often raised by prospective parents.

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"When we first meet with parents, a major concern is how their children will learn to read in English - it can be a leap of faith," Scribner said. "We tell them that it's proven by research that reading skills are transferable - if you learn to read in one language, it's easier to learn to read in another."

Scores in the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests, she said, bear this out.

"(Immersion students) may be a little behind their fellow third graders - in English, not in math - but, by the fourth and fifth grade, they're at the same level as, if not surpassing, their peers," she said.

Jackson said there was some initial anxiety when the MCAS tests were first introduced, but there has not been a significant difference between those in the program and typical students.

"Students in French immersion may not score as well in the early years, but we have years and years of data that shows they make up for it very quickly," he said.

The state does not track the number of foreign-language immersion students, but area district officials have said that their programs are typically filled.

"We have a limit of 50 (new) students each year - that's based on the amount of staff we have," Jackson said. "We still have a waiting list for the program."

Scribner said the Mendon-Upton program has enjoyed similar popularity.

"When we began the program, there was a lottery for quite a few years, because we could only take so many children," she said.

Though financial issues at the Mendon-Upton District had reduced the number of slots available, an effort has been made to restore the program to its previous status. In the coming school year, there will be immersion offerings at both the district's elementary schools.

The Framingham School District has an entire school - the Barbieri Elementary School - in its "Two Way" program, which was established in 1990.

"There are 604 students - 228 are limited English proficient - and the school maintains close to 50/50 English dominant to Spanish dominant speakers," Superintendent Stacy Scott wrote in an email.

According to Scott, his district's program starts with 80 percent Spanish instruction in kindergarten and first grade, which then steps down to 70 percent and 50 percent in the next two grades.

"A cohort of Barbieri graduates continue in a strand at the Walsh Middle School," Scott wrote. "(Framingham High School) continues the strand through grade 12. There are 105 students enrolled in Two-Way classes at FHS."

Though the numbers are not formally tracked, officials said immersion students often pursue language study in higher education.

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"We have a lot of anecdotal data that students continue to study French as a major or minor in college," Jackson said. "We hear back from students who continue to use French in their careers."

Scribner said the Mendon-Upton program has seen three graduating classes so far, and participation in it has helped students get into the colleges of their choice.

"I’ve been interviewing students who graduated – we always want their feedback on what they do with the language," she said. "It’s always fun to hear what they have to say."